Feb 3, 2007

So lately I've had this thing about my work being too clean. I look at my older work and it just seems boring when it's clean. Maybe it's because it makes me think the piece is too reliant on Photoshop to work well. I also think it's because of my obsession with dirty, rough hip-hop production, old record covers and dusty record stores. I find something nostalgic in it. I'm not entirely sure what it is. Either way, I want my work to reflect that. The world isn't a clean, perfect place. And if I'm going to be honost in my work, I'm going to comment on the dirty realness of life. Also, being dirty is more fun.So this is a revisitation of a piece I did in my Digital Drawing class last semester. I pulled the drawing off my wall, re-inked it with my dip pens and recolored it in Photoshop.. The difference is wild. Here's the original. I can barely stand to look it. I originally meant for this City of God poster to look dirty and dingy, like Brazillian favelas. But after looking at it for a few months, it just wasn't as dirty as I think I wanted it to be. And oddly enough, the file for the original had maybe 30 layers to it. The new version only has 3. I think it's a huge improvement over the original and I hope I can use similar methods in my later work.